Friday, May 6, 2016

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bread with Walnuts

This banana bread was a success with all the ingredients and flavors complementing each other and yielding a very tender and flavorful loaf. There's also a teaspoon of instant coffee powder making them no doubt breakfast appropriate.

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a large loaf pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the slightly melted peanut butter, sugar, mashed bananas, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla..
3. Stir/sift in cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. Stir/sift in flour.
5. Pour into loaf pan and top with thinly sliced banana pieces. Bake for roughly 55 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.
6. Cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes.
7. Optional: top with peanut butter. Melt peanut butter in a microwave-safe bowl for 30 seconds, stir, and drizzle over loaf. Serve!

The white whole wheat flour added nutritious whole grain values and gave the loaf a loose/dry-ish crumb. I imagine the crumbs to be moist and tight if AP flour was used. Sugar was also drastically lowered from 150g in the original recipe to 40g. The sweetness was perfect for me after the reduction, especially when compensated with a generous drizzle of peanut butter. Ahh, let's just take a moment to admire the beautiful color contrast of the pb drizzle on the dark chocolate loaf!!

Taste: 4 stars out of 5

Rich complex chocolate mocha/pb/banana flavors.

Texture: 3.8 stars out of 5

Bread like; on the firm/dry side, but still very tender and moist as the crumbs loosen and dissolve with each bite. The exterior was crisp when fresh out the oven!

*Presentation: 5 out of 5

Absolutely in love with how aesthetically pleasing this loaf is. The thinly sliced bananas, peanut butter drizzles, and the dark color loaf.. so perfect. Tip: go generous with the peanut butter drizzles!